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With that, we're off to LA, then to Thailand on Sunday. Look for updates here soon.
The Simpsons have toyed with the idea of a pink elephant in a different way. In one episode of the TV cartoon series, a pink, elephant-shaped balloon floats into a Log Cabin Republicans meeting just as they are trying to decide on a new logo. "Something that says gay AND Republican?" asks an LCR member. The response? "A little on the nose, don't you think?"
Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson's widow, recently sent an email out detailing specific threats to Smithson's masterpiece, Spiral Jetty. Please take action before 7 pm ET today.
Yesterday I received an urgent email from Lynn DeFreitas, Director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, telling me of plans for drilling oil in the Salt Lake near Spiral Jetty. See Attachments. The deadline for protest is [today] Wednesday, at 5PM. Of course, DIA has been informed and are meeting about it today.
I have been told by Lynn that the oil wells will not be above the water, but that means some kind of industrial complex of pipes and pumps beneath the water and on the shore. The operation would require roads for oil tank trucks, cranes, pumps etc. which produce noise and will severely alter the wild, natural place.
If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov. Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference, they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.
They try to slip these drilling contracts under the radar, that¹s why we found out so late, not through notification, but from a watchdog lawyer at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the group that alerted me to the land leasing for oil and gas near Sun Tunnels last May.
Thank you for your consideration of this serious environmental matter.
Sheneka McDonald spent 10 minutes trying to convince poll workers at the same precinct that she should have a Democratic ballot. She questioned poll workers when she was handed a Republican ballot but was told, "this is the only ballot we have."Via Norwegianity; image appropriated from Wired.
"I said, 'How can this be the only ballot,'" McDonald recalled. "That's when the guy chimed in from the back and said the Democratic primary was in March."
The poll captain eventually apologized to McDonald and told her they had forgotten to unpack all the ballots. "It was a little unnerving this morning," she said. "I don't see how you forget to unpack ballots. This is what gives Florida its reputation."
Target has gotten attention for the billboard and its blogger policy from publications ranging from Minnesota Monitor and the local site Parents for Ethical Marketing to WCCO and Fox 9. But the New York Times' coverage is by far the biggest. Two questions, then: While Target has assured me that changes in the no-blogs policy are on the way, will this press accelerate that process? And, when a photo of an advertising billboard runs free of charge in the New York Times, is there such a thing as bad press?
01/26/2008 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Many contemporary artists are using craft to make diverse and timely political statements. Because creating crafts is so often social and communal, they can play a vital role in the public sphere. The speakers examine the role of craft in forming national identities, especially in times of political turmoil or war; notions of patriotism; feminism and the domestic sphere; and unconventional economic models. Five artists will present projects and discuss their work. By linking the act of production and handmaking in the public realm to ideological issues of agency, participants ask how art makes political subjects. Panelists include Liz Collins, artist/designer; Sabrina Gschwandtner, artist/curator; Cat Mazza, artist/activist; and Allison Smith, visual artist. Moderator: Julia Bryan-Wilson, art historian and critic, University of California at Irvine.
He helped the supply side by cradling 25lb shells or boxes of ammunition in his arms and passing them down the line.
Off-duty, he loved nothing more than a bottle of beer, a cigarette and to wrestle with the men - in between raids on the cookhouse.
By the end of the war, Voytek had become a symbol of ursine courage, but his country was under Soviet domination, so he travelled with other Polish troops to Scotland and the Berwickshire village of Hutton.
Soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with.
Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, 82, who still lives near the site of the camp in Berwickshire, said: 'He was like a big dog, no-one was scared of him.
"He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man."
Bush, before:
“I believe it is the job of a President to confront problems, not pass them on to future Presidents and future generations.”
Bush, now:
The White House confirmed Wednesday that its new budget next month will not request a full year’s funding for the war in Iraq, leaving the next president and Congress to confront major cost questions soon after taking office in 2009.
In his dress shirt and tie, and with his unwavering smile, he walked over and posed for photographs with a group of black youngsters. Putting his arm around a teenage girl, he waved to the cameras and offered, “Who let the dogs out?” He added a tepid “woof woof.”Somewhere, the Baha Men, the Bahamian group whose 2000 song the candidate was referencing, must have been shuddering.
The paper received perhaps 20 phone call about it, plus a handful of letters to the editor, wrote Free Press managing editor Joe Spear. "It wasn't intentional," he added. "It's one of those things that happens when people put together 50,000 words and dozens of photographs a day and must, I say must, have it done by midnight, without exception."
Most of the responses came from angry locals, including one who surmised it "certainly wasn't a coincidence" and said it "implies that the editors and The Free Press are attacking Jesus and the Christian religion." But one letter writer approved of the mistake, stating that the billboard for a Assembly of God church in St. Peter is just the kind of "visual clutter" the city should be clamping down on. "Billboards are placed along highways for one reason: To sell us something. I don't need their help deciding what religion or product to choose. I never wanted to see that sign, or any others, along Highway 22. It is blight on the landscape and an assault to our senses -- it truly is an eyesore."
A penitent Spear concluded that "perhaps Jesus will forgive us."
The most common form of female genital cutting, representing about 80 percent of cases around the world, includes the excision of the clitoris and the labia minora. A more extreme version of the practice, known as Pharaonic circumcision or infibulation, accounts for 15 percent of cases globally and involves the removal of all external genitalia and a stitching up of the vaginal opening.The Times piece concludes that, "as Western awareness of female genital cutting has grown, anthropologists, policy makers and health officials have warned against blindly judging those who practice it, saying that progress is best made by working with local leaders and opinion-makers to gradually shift the public discussion of female circumcision from what it’s believed to bestow upon a girl toward what it takes away."
I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.But as Jacob Weisberg writes in his new book The Bush Tragedy, the president is reading more into the work than is really there:
He came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.[via]Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."
The sculptures were created for the Jan. 10 GOP debate there, but one shot of the installation seems to suggest the make-or-break nature of the Jan. 16 primary for Fred Thompson, who, as the Wall Street Journal says, has "fizzled" in all previous contests. From the looks of it, he's being... buried alive.
In Madrid, Spain they currently building a huge structure called an “Air Tree” or “Eco Boulevard de Vallecas”. The Tree was created by Urban Ecosystem to be a social center, and to improve the surrounding environment. The structure is also completely self-sufficient, generating all its own power with solar cells. Any surplus energy is sold to the electrical grid. It also produces oxygen using its arrays of plants and trees, hence the “tree” appellation.
...The painting may be slightly amateurish, fading across two rickety sheets of plywood in Mount Oliver, Pennsylvania. But who among us will have something so heartfelt and beautiful created to remember us when we're gone? If we're lucky, maybe a few lines in the local paper about our works and days, the names of those we'll leave behind. A wake full of uncomfortable people eager to move on with their lives...
But less discussed is the retailer's policy of not communicating with what, in an email to Jussel, a Target rep called "non-traditional media outlets" -- blogs and trade publications.
Reached by phone on Tuesday, VonWalter told me that workload has something to do with the decision, but there's a bigger factor. "We want to focus on our communications with our customer base and our guests, not on the industry as a whole… That just expanded into blogs."
But she acknowledges that, with the decline in the newspaper industry and more people getting information from online sources, the policy needs an overhaul. "In today's media world, we recognize it's worth revisiting."
Further, "we understand that the public is looking for more transparency, both from government and from corporations."
She couldn't determine what criteria -- site traffic, content, mission of a site -- might guide heightened transparency among online entities. "Is it certain blogs? Is it influencer blogs?" she pondered.
Target hasn't issued a statement about the Times Square billboard, and VonWalter says they've received fewer than a dozen complaints.
"This is a winter marketing campaign," she added, and it featured a series of posters showing winter activities -- skiing, skating and, in this ad, making a snow angel -- atop the bullseye logo. "It's totally innocent."
Today, a third kind of notebook called MacBook Air being introduced. World's thinnest notebook. 0.76" 13.3-inch screen, LED backlight with instant on. Full-size keyboard with backlighting. Large trackpad with a variety of gestures for panning, rotating, zooming (with iPhone-like pinching), etc.Via News Cut.
"This sort of objectification is not only harmful to the way girls think about themselves, it encourages boys to 'target' girls sexually; in other words, to objectify girls rather than treat them as whole people," said Michele St. Martin, editor of the Minnesota Womens Press. "As the parent of two young daughters, I find it disturbing that a hometown corporation like Target seems to feel that it's beneath them to respond to a parents' organization's legitimate questions."
She's referring to the reply Jussel got from Target HQ when she tried to speak to someone about her concerns: They wouldn't give her the time of day.
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Target doesn't consider a parent concerned about advertising's effect on children as a "core guest"? And Target, touted as a forward-thinking revolutionizer of big-box retail, won't engage with smaller blogs?Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.
I've left a message with Target's media relations office to see if this hometown "non-traditional media outlet" will get a reply.
Update: I contacted Target media relations through the company's main corporate line: 1.800.440.0680. Before you speak, you'll be asked for your name, zip code, phone number and email address. They also have an online comment form.
Her take on T-Paw?
BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis, who "heartily" recommends Cox's tweets, says it's "a medium made for her: the great ad lib, the beautiful bon mot, the sly snark."
Some of Cox's recent tweets:
Detroit, MI: McCain people interested in crowd numbers; plead for me to send intel from the Romnibus. I would but all crowds look alike. about 15 hours ago from txtSo, anyone know of Minnesota reporters, politicos or campaign-watchers who use Twitter?Myrtle Beach: Ron Paul has the voice of a sick cat. 09:01 PM January 10, 2008 from web
Who gave Fred Thompson a Red Bull? 08:57 PM January 10, 2008 from web
Charleston: First washing-of-underwear-in-sink of presidential cycle 2008! 07:09 PM January 09, 2008 from txt
Watching Fred Thompson talk about/look like death. 07:35 PM January 06, 2008 from txt
KARL: Oh, can I get your autograph, Mr. Simpson, sir?Apparently this episode -- originally aired in February 1998, several years before I started this project -- captured the attention of media studies scholars. SIMILE (Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education), a University of Toronto Press journal, published the esssay "Homer Simpson explains our postmodern identity crisis, whether we like it or not: Media literacy after 'The Simpsons'" in a 2001 issue.
HOMER: Sure, what's your name?
KARL: Homer, we've worked together for ten years.
HOMER: (silence)
KARL: It's Karl.
HOMER (signs the paper and slides it over)
KARL: Homer, this is MY name... I wanted yours.
HOMER: Take it or leave it... (glances down at the paper) ... Karl.
...Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.
From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.
In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.
All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949...
As with any love affair, I suppose you start by describing the first time you saw someone: It must have been in the winter of 2004. My (now) wife and I were in the line at Seward Co-op in Minneapolis. It stopped us in our tracks, there amongst the new-age wall calendars: Cat Lovers Against the Bomb.Every year since, the DeArmonds have been buying up these calendars, produced annually since 1984 by a peace group in Nebraska, for themselves and to give as gifts ("always with a fleeting sense of panic: 'Will they get it?'"). Filled with black-and-white, amateur photos of cats, as well as the occasional trivia item about either cats or peace activism, it's both the theme and the look that compels.